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Today's Manufacturing Workflow -- The Need for Speed

by Guest blogger Chris Skubic, Machine Research

As a child, I marveled at antiquity through my great grandmother’s many stories of life in the old west. Born in the 1890s—well before the horseless carriage—she’d speak of waking up before dawn to walk five miles to school each morning. After class, since she was already in town, her parents had her stop by the baker, butcher and general store before visiting the dairy to carry dinner and breakfast home. In the century since, we have all benefitted from the advent of department stores, catalog ordering, supermarkets, shopping malls, and most-recently, online shopping. This transformation, driven by the market opportunity of customer convenience and product accessibility, has been nothing short of revolutionary. Rather than organize products according to the provider’s convenience—meat from the butcher, milk at the dairy—they are offered to us collectively in a single location.